The Historic and Design Review Commission approved the final design of an eight-story hotel on the River Walk. The Hampton Inn and Suites/Home2 Suites by Hilton will replace a section of the former Solo Serve building on Soledad Street that was partially demolished in March.
Austin-based Merritt Development Group and hotel developer Vista Host received conceptual approval from the commission last summer and construction crews have been preparing the site ever since. During the demolition process, debris was accidentally thrown from the site onto a covered walkway and landed in the San Antonio River.
The hotel will include a river-level restaurant, street-level retail space, and a pool.
The structure served as the Bexar County Courthouse in the 1870s. City staff and local conservationists have focused on the remnant of the old courthouse, a historic 11-foot brick wall facing the River Walk.
The approval comes with some stipulations, including that the developers keep the Office of Historic Preservation apprised of any other significant archeological findings around the property.
Patti Zaiontz, first vice president on the board of the San Antonio Conservation Society was the lone resident to speak about the planned hotel. The Conservation Society wants to see more of the wall preserved and incorporated into the overall exterior design.
“The current rendering before you illustrates a wall liberally punched with arched openings,” Zaiontz said, reading a letter from Board President Susan Beavin. “The Society urges that the proposed redevelopment retain more of the original wall. Fewer open spaces will better maintain the character of the original retaining wall rather than create a purely decorative screen.”
David Merritt, president of the Merritt Development Group, said a report on archaeological findings from the site has been submitted to the OHP, and that the City has closely monitored site preparation. Some of the limestone blocks from the wall are going to be relocated and reused on the property, he added.
“Elements of the wall are important to retain,” Merritt said. “We think we’ve done a good job retaining important aspects of the wall and allowing access to the river.”
HDRC Chairman Michael Guarino, an architect and educator, said he often takes his students by the former Solo Serve site to help them understand downtown’s history.
“[The wall blocks] are unique and are a testimony to a number of buildings that have been on this site,” he said.
Guarino commended the developers for attending an HDRC architecture review subcommittee meeting, praising their willingness to incorporate as much of the retaining wall as possible.
“Approaches I have seen from other developers would have been to tear the wall down,” he said.
The commission unanimously approved the design. The hotel is among several projects in that area downtown, including the new Frost Bank Tower, expected to open in 2019, and an 18-story boutique hotel on the River Walk next to the Esquire Tavern.
I realize I’m late to this conversation, but last time I checked we were nowhere near full occupancy on existing hotels, yet there is a need for another one? On the River?
Does anyone remember how the Grand Hyatt was supposed to be this luxury mecca but had to lower their room prices because they couldn’t get the occupancy numbers? Are we in a hotel occupancy crisis that can only be cured by yet another hotel (that looks exactly like all the other hotels. See the Embassy Suites almost next door)? Our downtown will soon be filled with a bunch of beige, characterless rectangles all for the enjoyment of someone else from somewhere else. Great. Yippee. Can’t wait. I know, I know…economic boost from tourism dollars, right?
What happened to the push to make downtown more attractive to locals so they would restore (lost) vibrancy to our city center?
Don’t get me wrong. That space/whole block is in serious need of rehab and I’m glad something is happening but there are multiple hotels with in a 2-block area. What happened to trying to get more actual city residents living downtown? Prime opportunity missed…
Couldn’t agree more. If you’re going to create yet another hotel at least make it exciting to look at. SA needs to step its game up.
One loss with the approved redevelopment is the removal of generous and continuous awning over the eastern sidewalk of Soledad Street between Commerce and Houston.
It’s not hard to Google to see exactly how sidewalk awnings have long been part of the historic fabric of this particular downtown streetscape and public right-of-way.
HDRC review of this downtown project (and noting lost sidewalk awnings throughout downtown) would be comic if it did not so adversely impact our public realm. Anyone who has ever walked downtown can speak to the benefit of generous sidewalk awnings. My sense is HDRC members rarely if ever get out on foot to explore the historic streetscapes that they are meant to be the latest guardians of.
See: https://www.google.com/search?q=soledad+st+san+antonio+history&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiPko7j8N7VAhUr74MKHWNqBAQQ_AUICigB&biw=939&bih=653#imgrc=_3BBJC7E8pZjBM:
Thanks for your article on the former site of the historic Veramendi Palace torn down by the City of San Antonio in 1909. “The queer, quaint old building” was demolished when Soledad Street was widened in late 1909, says the San Antonio Light and Gazette, Nov. 14, 1909. After the last tenant, a curio store, moved out, the former Veramendi Palace was “torn stone from stone.”
The former home of Spanish Vice Governor Juan De Veramendi, the home was once occupied by his son-in- law, James Bowie and daughter Ursula de Veramendi. It is unfortunate that the care going towards the preservation of thatretaining wall facing the Riverwalk was not present in 1909 when the City of San Antonio felt that a wider Soledad street was more important than that historic building.